The slo gene & behavior

part 2

 
What other behaviors are affected by slo mutations? Walks. Loss of slo expression in muscles causes the flies to fly very poorly. They are more like walks than flies really. Sticky-feet. Loss of slo expression in the central nervous system causes flies to exhibit a phenotype called sticky-feet. I love this phenotype and began my career in flies with it. If flies are exposed to a 37°C /4 min heat pulse and immediately released on a room temperature surface they behave as if their feet are stuck to the surface of the dish. You can push on them with pencil and they will let up push them over. Once they are on their back, if you tap their feet with the pencil they will stick to it. I used this phenotype to isolate mutations in slo. One summer I knocked over about 20,000 mutagenized flies with a pencil. For these efforts, I was rewarded with 13 mutant slo alleles. Lack of rhythm. The channel encoded by slo is thought to be one of the outputs of the circadian clock. Slo mutants do not have circadian rhythmicity. Can’t hold their liquor. To reiterate, slo mutants do not acquire tolerance to ethanol or to organic solvent anesthetics. Loss of slo expression in muscles causes the animals to be very poor fliers (no longer flies, but walkers). Mutations in slo cause a behavior called sticky f512-232-3464